they would lean toward china. trouble was how to contact a regime whose very existence the united states denied? >> we came up with the idea that our ambassador in warsaw should walk up to the chinese ambassador at the next social event in which they were both present and ask for a meeting and say we wanted to talk. >> this was like a spy thriller. >> absolutely. so there was a yugoslav fashion show and they were both there. our ambassador walked over to the chinese and our ambassador chased him down the hallway and finally cornered him long enough to say we wanted to talk. two weeks later a chinese car flying the chinese flag arrived at our embassy and brings the ambassador saying, okay, i'm ready to talk. >> but the meetings met with little progress. in the summer of 1969 with lower bureaucratic channels broken down kissinger and nixon devised a plan to go straight to the top, right to chairman mao. during a trip to pakistan they asked the president to arrange the china connection. >> nothing happened for six mo